Setting goals is a big part of building your home-based travel business

Many people think that setting goals means setting your sites on some financial benchmark: an annual income, a new car, a house in that fancy new development.

It certainly can mean all of those things, but goals can be activity-based as well and, because of that, extremely helpful to the new home-based agent.

For those of you unfamiliar with the “rules” of setting goals (and as a quick review for those who know), goals should be:

1. Specific. “I will earn $50,000 this year” and not “I want to earn a lot of money.”

2. Written Down. A mental goal is not worth the paper it’s written on.

3. Time Limited. “By September 15th” and not “some day.”

4. Flexible. Goals should help you, not hobble you. So if you find your income goals are unrealistic, revise them downwards. On the other hand, if you find that half way through the year you’re three quarters of the way to your income goal, revise it upwards.

Many people start their home-based travel business with a firm desire to rush headlong toward success, and that’s terrific. Others start their businesses on a more relaxed basis, testing the waters as it were, and that’s great, too. One of the best things about the new home-based travel phenomenon is that it allows people to start up for a modest amount of money while they discover if this is something they will want to pursue with greater vigor.

But just because you are testing the waters is no reason not to start setting goals. Also, if you are trying to set yourself some financial goals, you might not have the experience yet to know where to set them. Activity-based goals, however, are within the reach of and understandable by everyone, regardless of experience.

So what sort of activity goals should you set?

Setting goals — some thoughts

• Reading (or re-reading) one chapter of the Home-Based Travel Agent Success Course each night for a week, making notes of any ideas you have for putting this new knowledge to work.

‘How To Design Your Business’ Module 1

Students of the Home-Based Travel Agent Success Course create business models
that serve their own best interests. They learn how to maximize their income,
minimize their expenses, create the right product mix, and much more.

• Giving your business card to everyone you meet at this week’s club (or other) meeting and remembering to ask for theirs. (Obviously, you wouldn’t do this if the “unwritten rules” of the gathering prohibit soliciting business.)

• Starting five Client Profile Forms each week for this month.

• Telling one friend each day about your new travel business for this week.

• Conducting an Internet search for a destination in which you wish to specialize and cataloging the sites you find. Completing this task within 15 days.

• Contacting ten tour operators who specialize in your area of interest this week and requesting brochures.

You get the idea. Setting goals can be simple and all of these are simple tasks that start to break down the enormous question, “Where do I start!!??” into manageable chunks. They are also time-limited and can be documented. If you count the number of business cards you take to the meeting you can determine how many you gave out when you get home. If you find you have only 16 Client Profile Forms at the end of the month, you know you’ve fallen short of your goal.

Later, you can start setting goals for business activities that directly affect your bottom line:

• Book six cabins this month.

• Select two cruises a year out to promote and have space blocked by the end of the month.

It’s nice to have broad, over-arching goals. But you are more likely to reach the big goals if you get in the habit of setting lots of mini-goals that bring you closer to your ultimate destination.

As I point out more than once in my home study course, success as a home-based travel agent means keeping an eagle eye on the bottom line and always looking for ways to boost sales whenever possible and to sell smarter. Here are three pointers that can be put to use no matter where your business stands now.

Segment Your Market

The course goes into a good bit of detail on segmenting your market. Hopefully, you’ve done that, at least to some extent. Let the big storefront agencies lose money trying to be all things to all people, while you sell smarter and profit. But even if you have already chosen a profitable market segment, perhaps you can make more sales by slicing it up even further.

Allow me to explain.

Let’s say you specialize in dive travel. Great choice, great product. Easily targeted, high margin, and obtaining in-depth product knowledge is sheer fun.

Now dive travel may already seem like a pretty narrowly defined niche, but what about . . .

Boost Sales By Offering Something No One Else Can

How about in-person, to-your-front-door delivery of brochures and travel documents? How about dog-sitting or plant-watering services while clients are away? How about airport drop off and pick up? What about the hard-earned expertise you’ve gained by specializing in one of the many market segments you learned about in the home study course? How about your very personal and confidential list of recommendations for great shopping and fine (or inexpensive) dining in Paris –- or Florence, or Sydney.

Now there’s a good chance you are already doing one or more of these things, or doing other things I haven’t mentioned. But are you letting your clients know about it? Are you encouraging them to let their friends know about it?

It’s called an “exclusive benefit” and it can be a powerful inducement to a prospect to take out a credit card and make a deposit on that tour or cruise you’re promoting. If you feel uncomfortable “blowing your own horn” like this, get over it. Review Module 3: How To Sell Travel Like a Pro in the course to build your confidence.(Don’t have the course yet? Click here.)

The fact of the matter is, your customers WANT you to blow your own horn. That’s how they gain the reassurance that you are someone worth doing business with, on this trip and the next and the next.

Boost Sales By Pursuing Add-On Opportunities

This one is so obvious that I’m almost embarrassed to include it here. It may seem odd to those who haven’t been in sales very long, but any professional salesperson will tell you that the best time to make a sale is when someone has just bought something else from you.

Of course, you know that when someone takes a cruise they are a prospect for a pre- or post-cruise extension.

If someone is flying to Orlando, they need a rental car, a hotel, theme park tickets, and maybe even a limo to the airport. And of course everyone needs travel insurance. But do you ask? If not, start today.

Taking things a step further, do you set up the next sale as soon as you’ve made this one?

For example, the person leaving now on a quickie vacation may be an excellent prospect for the cruise sailing ten months away that you are promoting. It’s not at all out of place to request a modest deposit to hold a cabin. If that doesn’t work, ask their permission to put them on your email reminder list. Get the idea?

Depending on how you’ve structured your business, there may be other things you can sell this person.

Taking the dive travel example again, why not sell scuba accessories? You can even sell something that has nothing to do with travel.

The point to be made here is that you have built up a clientele of people who trust you and enjoy doing business with you. Again, the pros will tell you that acquiring the customer is the hardest part. Making repeat sales is relatively easy.

Boost Sales Even If You’re Just Starting Out

If you have just started your travel marketing business or are still considering whether to do so, these may seem like “advanced” techniques, but they’re not really. Selling travel is a simple straightforward business that can quickly get to seem complicated only because there are so many possibilities. That’s one reason I spend time in the course guiding you in defining your travel marketing business in a way that will make sense for you and help you maximize your earning potential.

So if you’re just starting out, take some time to define the ind of business you want to build. The course gives you a number of options to guide your thinking, but above all be guided by what you want to accomplish — in your business life, in your personal travel goals.

That may seem like an odd statement, but consider this: The “traditional” travel agency, that relies on perfect strangers walking in off the street to make its living, suffers a very real disadvantage. On the one hand, the nature of its business means that it’s hard to get to know its customers. On the other hand, even if the owners would like to get to know their customers, the sheer number of them makes the task difficult.

Obviously, a lot of successful storefront agencies do get to know their clients and have developed systems to assist them in that effort. They almost certainly know a fair bit about their best customers.

But as a small, home-based enterprise you enjoy a tremendous advantage over your bigger competitors. You can really get to know all of your clients.

First of all, why get to know your clients? This is a business not a social club after all. You want to sell things to your clients, not become their best friend. True enough. But really getting to know your clients will enable you to sell them even more. And if, in the process, you become friends, well what’s wrong with that? It’s just another reason so many “traditional” agents are heading home – to have a more satisfying person-to-person working experience.

Getting to know your clients is not quite like getting to know your friends. It’s a more professional and targeted process. You get to know your friends over time, almost accidentally. Getting to know your clients is – or should be – a much more deliberate process.

You will also want to know things about your clients that you don’t know about your friends – unless, of course, your friends are also your clients. (And that, by the way, is a goal you should set for yourself.)

You want to know everything you can about how and where they travel. Their likes and dislikes. Their must-haves and their can-do-withouts. Their budget guidelines and their cost/value equations. In short, you want to know everything you possibly can to be able to tailor the perfect cruise, or tour, or hotel, or resort for them.

Getting to Know Your Clients One at a Time

I am a big believer in making the process of getting to know your clients a formal and professional one. Those of you who have my home study course have already studied the Client Profile Form. (At least, I hope you have.)

‘Qualifying’ Module 3, Ch. 4

Qualifying is the salesperson’s term for getting to know your clients.
Module 3 of the Home-Based Travel Agent Success Course is a complete
course on the art of selling. The Qualifying chapter contains a detailedClient Profile Form for you to use with every prospect you meet.

The Client Profile Form provides a sort of “road map” to the most important information you will want to have about each of your clients and it is an excellent start on capturing that information. If you don’t have the Client Profile Form, it’s easy enough to develop your own. Just think of all the things you’d like to know about your customers and add them to the list. If you miss any, you’ll surely discover them along the way and you can add them.

You can fill out the Client Profile Form over time, as you go along, as your customers come to you for different things. Or you can do it all at once. I would like to urge you to adopt the second course of action.

If you are hesitant, think about your doctor. A good doctor will “take your history” on the first visit. She may even request records from your previous physician. This is a professional way to do business, and why should you be any less professional in conducting your travel marketing business? Sending a client on the wrong cruise may not be as life threatening as giving them the wrong medication, but believe me they’ll holler just as loud.

So if you haven’t “taken a history” from your clients, do it soon. It will position you in your clients’ minds as a true professional and send the unmistakable message that you are serious about earning their business. It will also put some psychological pressure on you (the good kind) to get serious about promoting and building your business.

Getting to Know Your Clients All at Once

Once you have a good supply of Client Profile Forms on a good supply of clients you will start to notice patterns. You will notice, perhaps, that most of your clients prefer cruising vacations and that most of the cruisers prefer the Western Caribbean. Or you may notice that you have a surprising number of golfers in your customer base. Or that the majority of your clients are over 50.

These little nuggets of information are trying to tell you something. They are trying to tell you where to focus your efforts. They are suggesting areas and travel products you should get to know more about. They are telling you what areas of your business are not very productive and which you might want to consider scaling back on or dropping altogether.

If you have gathered all this information, you’ll be in a position to take advantage of special opportunities. When that great deal on a cruise and golf vacation comes along you won’t be sitting there saying, “Gosh, I know I must have some clients who’d go for this, but who?” Instead, you’ll be able to develop a list of hot prospects in short order and make some serious money.

Getting To Know Clients You Haven’t Even Met

Those of you who are familiar with the course or who have been reading my emails and blog posts know how keen I am on the concept of specializing. If you have specialized in your business, then you already know certain very crucial facts about your customers because you almost demand that they fit a certain profile before you let them become customers. You also know that there are a lot of folks out there who fit your profile who aren’t customers simply because you haven’t met them yet. And because you know so much about them, it’s relatively easy to find them. All it takes is a little creativity.

Even if you don’t specialize, you can still take advantage of hot sellers among the client you do know. For example, if you’ve had great success with a certain all-inclusive resort package, look for common traits among the folks who bought that package. All retirees? All young, recently divorced singles? This gives you an idea of the type of people you haven’t even met yet who are good prospects for that product.

Getting to know your clients is an on-going project. To be successful at it you need to be organized and professional and above all you need to record your data. Don’t say to yourself, “I must remember that Jim’s an avid golfer.” Write it down. Better yet, write it down on Jim’s Client Profile Form.

One of the most important skills anyone in sales can master is dealing with customer concerns (sometimes referred to as “objections”). I tell you how to do this in my home study course. In fact, I provide a complete mini-course in sales techniques, based on my years as a corporate sales trainer.

Was he listening?

Success in handling your customers’ concerns, objections, misunderstandings — whatever you want to call them — begins with the deceptively simple skill of listening. I use the word “deceptively” because it sounds easy: “Hey, I can hear can’t I? I hear everything my customer says!”

But hearing is not the same thing as listening. Listening implies that you are picking up the meaning of what’s being said. If you’re not doing this, everything you hear is just noise.

Also, it’s not uncommon for nerves to take over when a travel agent is in a selling situation. You’re so intent on getting the customer to agree that you unconsciously “block out” anything that might deter you from reaching that goal. You stop listening and the customer feels left out of the conversation.

Many salespeople feel that dealing with concerns is more an art than a science. There’s a certain amount of truth to this, especially when it comes to getting customers to share their concerns with you to begin with. But the fact remains that answering common objections is not rocket science and with a little bit of effort virtually anyone can learn how to do it. With a little practice, most people can get pretty good at it.

Feel Felt Found Explained

Fortunately, one of the most effective techniques is also one of the simplest. It’s called the “Feel-Felt-Found Technique” and it can be used to handle concerns that are either vague or that don’t lend themselves to factual proofs.

I was reminded of this recently when I found myself talking with someone who was considering investing in my home study course, but just couldn’t make up his mind. Not only that, he had a hard time putting into words just what was holding him back. (The hardest objection to answer is the one you don’t understand!)

Finally, he said, “I dunno, I’m just not sure it’s for me.”

Now that’s pretty vague, but I was able to say, “Y’know, I know how you FEEL. When I first started thinking about getting into the travel business, I FELT the same way. But once I looked into it a bit, I FOUND I could pretty much create a business that I was comfortable with.”

I then went on to mention a few more “selling points” that seemed appropriate: Start-up costs are so low that if he found he didn’t like the business he could get out without it costing him a small fortune, unlike a lot of other businesses. My no-questions-asked money back guarantee. And so forth. But I could see it was the Feel-Felt-Found technique that broke the log jam in his mind.

Feel-Felt-Found begins with a statement of empathy, followed by another statement that tells the customer he’s not alone. Finally, there is the reassurance that someone else (or perhaps many other people) faced the same problem and found it wasn’t really a problem at all.

In a travel setting, you might use Feel-Felt-Found when someone expresses a reluctance to go on a cruise for fear of getting seasick. “I know how you feel. A lot of my first-time cruisers felt the same way. But they found that the new ships are so stable that seasickness isn’t a problem. Now they’re hooked on cruising.”

The Fine Points of Feel Felt Found

Of course, to be effective, you have to use this technique truthfully and honestly. I really was uncertain about whether I’d like selling travel when I first started toying with the idea. I was afraid of having to do a lot of things that didn’t particularly interest me, but found (there’s that word again!) that the home-based model freed me to concentrate on the kinds of travel and the kinds of travel products I loved and ignore the rest. So my empathy was real and came through to the customer.

If you try to bluff the customer by saying something like “I know how you feel. I’ve had lots of customers who were even more out of shape than you who felt nervous about climbing Mt. Everest, but they found that once they were in Tibet they practically floated to the summit,” your untruthfulness will seep through no matter how skillfully you try to hide it. (If you are a politician making a career change, this caution may not apply to you.)

‘How To Sell Travel Like A Pro’ Module 3

Students of the Home-Based Travel Agent Success Course get a complete course
on selling travel. Finding prospects, zeroing in on the best ones, presenting
targeted travel recommendations, closing the sale. And more.

There’s an awful lot to learn about handling customer concerns and literally dozens of techniques for putting people’s minds at ease. I discuss a great many of them in depth in the home study course, but I think you’ll find Feel-Felt-Found one of the most helpful techniques out there. Try it for yourself and see.

You’ve worked your tail off throughout the late winter and spring planning perfect vacations for your clients. Summer has finally kicked in and the phone is relatively quiet – for the time being. Now it’s time for your vacation.

You could be here!

A home-based travel agent may feel confused about the very idea of travel agent vacations: Will I ever be able to take one? Shouldn’t I be on call, 24/7, just in case one of my customers needs me?

The fact of the matter is that things are a whole lot more relaxed than that. Sure, you can deny yourself a vacation, fearing that you might miss a sale, but that would be just plain foolish. You need to take vacations. And, remember, when you’re a home-based travel agent, a vacation is never simply a vacation. It’s business! These are trips you have to take and, if you follow the advice in my home study course, you’ll be able to take a perfectly legitimate tax deduction for most, if not all, your travel expenses. Just make sure you discuss any tax strategies with a qualified professional.

If you are selling primarily leisure travel (and my guess is that after you go through my course, that is the decision you will make), then being away from your home office for a week or two is not really an issue. That’s because leisure travel decisions are typically made well in advance. If you’re not there when a customer calls, it can usually wait.

Travel agent vacations as a marketing tool

In fact, your travel agent vacations can even be a selling point! Just leave an answering machine message like this: “Hi! It’s Amy of Cruise With Amy. I’m off sailing the crystal blue waters of the Caribbean looking for more ways to make your next vacation extra special. Leave me a message and I’ll tell you all about it when I get back!”

On your Facebook page, you can also post a photo of the ship you’ll be sailing on or the beach you’ll be lying on with a similar message.

Home-based travel agent Bill Potuchek and spouse set sail.

Travel agent vacations — how to finesse it

Also, many home-based agents travel with their customers by arranging group cruises or tours and then coming along – for free! – on a tour conductor pass. So not only are you traveling and having fun on your “working vacation,” you are forging deeper relationships with your clients. And, if you’re really smart, you’ll be asking them for help in reaching their friends and acquaintances so you sell even more travel when your get home.

Of course, a group that qualifies for a tour conductor pass is not exactly intimate and you will, quite rightly, be seen by your fellow travelers as the “go-to” person when problems arise. That might not be your idea of a “vacation.” The solution? Travel with a smaller group of friends or family. You’ll still be receiving some commission income to offset the cost and you will not have the pressure of being a group leader.

Don’t be afraid of getting away by yourself or with your spouse if that’s what you feel you need to recharge your batteries. As long as you do your job as a travel agent and research the destination you are visiting, this can still be a tax-deductible trip. Once again, consult your tax advisor to be extra sure.

Of course, there may be situations in which you really don’t want to make your customers wait for a week or more for a return call. Perhaps your business has grown to the point where you have hundreds rather than dozens of customers, thus increasing the chances that someone will need help in a hurry. There are solutions to this that will let you take off for a trip with a clear conscience.

Some (although not all) host agencies will “cover” for you while you’re away. This service is by no means free. In many cases, you will not earn any commissions on any sales that result from this type of arrangement. In other cases, your commission will be sharply reduced. Although it shouldn’t be an issue, there’s also the possibility (however remote) of losing the client to the host agency. If you think this is the type of service you will need, then you will need to seek out a host that provides it and make sure you have a clear understanding with the host on the terms of the agreement.

Another, perhaps preferable way of accomplishing the same thing is to make an arrangement with a fellow home-based agent to field your calls while you’re away. A telephone message can refer your clients to your colleague, but make it clear that this is for emergencies. For example: “Hi! It’s Amy of Cruise With Amy. I’m off sailing the crystal blue waters of the Caribbean looking for more ways to make your next vacation extra special. Leave me a message and I’ll tell you all about it when I get back! If you need immediate assistance with travel in the next week, call George Smith of Smith Travel at 555-5555 and he’ll look after you.”

If you make such an arrangement, make sure it’s fair to both parties. Ideally it should be reciprocal, that is, you should cover for George when he’s away.

You can locate fellow home-based agents by networking through a professional association like the Outside Sales Support Network (OSSN). If you’d like to join OSSN, I have provided a discounted application form here.

So in summary, don’t worry about being able to take a vacation. After all, vacations are your business now. Oh, and don’t forget to take some time to review your business plan, marketing strategies, and <sigh> declutter your office.

Have travel agents disappeared? Of course not, but it’s a zombie idea that never seems to die. Now we can add The New York Times to the list of those wondering “Have travel agents disappeared?”

I read a review by Barbara Ehrenreich of “Rise of the Robots” and “Shadow Work” in the New York Times Book Review and was brought up short by this sentence: “Booking travel reservations is now a D.I.Y. task; the travel agents have disappeared.”

These OSSN agents haven’t disappeared! (Source: OSSN)

After commenting loudly to no one in particular, I took electronic pen to hand and fired off a letter to the editor of the Book Review. Thinking that I’d accomplished nothing besides getting something off my chest, I forgot all about it. Then, lo and behold, they printed my letter in this Sunday’s issue of the Review!

In the letter I cited statistics about the size of the travel distribution channel and reassured the readership of the Times that “travel agents are alive and well and, in many cases, thriving.”

Here’s the entire letter:

To the Editor:

I am sorry to see a writer as intelligent and perceptive as Barbara Ehrenreich repeating the tired fiction that “travel agents have disappeared.”

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were over 73,000 travel agents in 2011. In 2014, the trade magazine Travel Weekly estimated there were over 100,000 agents, both retail and home-based.

Ehrenreich is not alone in her mistaken belief. President Obama went on record — twice — as saying that there were no more travel agents. But although many penny-pinching travelers seek out the lowest fares online (and sometimes wind up paying more than they have to), travel agents are alive and well and, in many cases, thriving.

I bring this up not to brag about what a clever fellow I am (well, maybe just a little), but because the experience made me realize something important.

The travel agent profession is being besieged by misguided, misinformed, and sometimes just plain dumb comments about how “there are no more travel agents” and “no one uses travel agents anymore.” Or posing the disingenuous question, “Have travel agents disappeared?” Even President Obama has gone on record as believing travel agents don’t exist. — twice!

Travel agents need to fight back. True, the travel trade press tries to set the record straight. But I wonder how many of those in the “lamestream media” read the travel trade press.

So the next time you see a local news anchor or an article in the paper say something dumb about how travel agents don’t exist — and you will! — write a letter to the TV station or the editor. If you see something online, make the truth known in the comments thread. If there’s no comments thread, send an email to the site.

Be firm but polite and arm yourself with facts. I relied on good old Google to come up with the statistics I used. Use anecdotes from your own experience that illustrate the value travel agents afford their clients.

You may think there’s little point in going to the trouble, that the chances of your letter being published are minimal. You may not want to expose yourself to the nastiness that is endemic in online comment threads. Point taken.

But as my experience with the Times shows, sometimes the message gets through, and if several travel agents wrote their small town newspaper about the latest misinformed comment about the demise of travel agents, my guess is the editor would sit up and take notice.

I can guarantee you one thing, however. You’ll feel better for getting it off your chest. And call me a sap, but I believe that together we can make a difference.

A new study from the Shullman Research Center, which typically reports on spending habits of the affluent, may help agents with marketing travel by matching clients with domestic and international destinations based on their age group.

Or at least point them in the right direction when they come to you for recommendations.

The study is broken down among millennials (18 to 34), gen Xers (35 to 50), and baby boomers (51 to 69) and covers where they’re going (domestic or international), the amount they expect to spend, where they’re staying, and modes of transportation.

More than three-quarters of all three groups travel for pleasure. While the majority travel within the United States, millennials lead the charge for international travel – at 38 percent, with 18 percent for gen Xers and 27 percent of baby boomers heading abroad. Millennials also have the deepest pockets!

For domestic destinations, Hawaii is the favorite among millennials, with Florida and California scoring big for ten Xers, and Nevada and other hot, dry climates for baby boomers. Internationally, Europe is especially big for baby boomers, while millennials are drawn to Asia and gen Xers are split among Europe, the Caribbean, and Mexico.

And how do they get to their destinations? For millennials, it’s by their own cars, at least domestically, followed by planes and just a few traveling by train.

Airplanes, of course, are the top mode of transportation for international travel, especially with baby boomers, at 86 percent. Interestingly, ship travel is preferred by more millennials than gen Xers or baby boomers.

If getting the best hotel Wi-Fi is important to your clients (and it probably is for most of them), then you will want to check out a study by the website HotelWifiTest.com. Being able to recommend the best hotel Wi-Fi at a client’s destination will really serve to differentiate you from run-of-the-mill travel agents.

The site looked at major hotel chains around the world and rated both the quality of the Wi-Fi offered and the percentage of properties offering free Wi-Fi. The result is a list of the best hotel Wi-Fi in two crucial dimensions.

This family needs the best hotel Wi-Fi. (Source: Tnooz)

Some chains (I’m looking at you, Marriott!) have come in for criticism because they charge for Wi-Fi, a service more and more travelers expect to be “free” (that is, included in the room rate).

But Marriott has the best hotel Wi-Fi in the United States! Your clients might decide that the extra charge is worth it — if they know the facts.

And surprisingly, Marriott also offers free Wi-Fi in 16.7% of its properties. Which ones, alas, are not reported.

Hyatt hotels are rated only slightly lower than Marriott for Wi-Fi quality, but they offer free Wi-Fi in 100% of their properties.

As you might expect, more upscale hotel chains offer the best hotel Wi-Fi quality. But moderate and budget chains ranked remarkably well. Super 8 was number six in the US rankings and they offer free Wi-Fi in 93% of their properties.

It was followed by other moderate and budget chains: Comfort Suites, Quality, Holiday Inn Express, and so on.

‘Booking Hotels’ Module 2, Chapter 3

Students of the Home-Based Travel Agent Success Course get thorough training
on how to book hotel stays like a pro. Choosing the hotel, getting the best rate, making the sale, how to increase your commissions. And more.

Behind the Best Hotel Wifi Rankings

The report needs to be taken as an approximation, rather than an exact science. Here is how HotelWifiTest describes its quality measurements for determining best hotel Wi-Fi:

Wi-Fi Quality is expressed by the percentage of hotels that offer adequate Wi-Fi quality in a given geographical area… a hotel judged as having adequate Wi-Fi must provide an expected download speed of at least 3 Mbps (the Netflix recommendation for SD-quality streaming) and an upload speed of 500 kbps (the Skype recommendation for high-quality non-HD video calling).

And here are the caveats for the free Wi-Fi ratings:

The Free Wi-Fi percentage is calculated as a ratio of hotels that offer free in-room Wi-Fi to all hotels for which the Wi-Fi price structure and availability is known. In our view, hotel Wi-Fi is a synonym for in-room Wi-Fi; therefore, hotels that offer free Wi-Fi only in public areas are not counted as hotels with free Wi-Fi. Some hotels provide free Wi-Fi for members of their loyalty programs, but require regular guests to pay for Wi-Fi. We don’t count this as free Wi-Fi.

The site lists worldwide results (Nordic Choice, a low-price Scandinavian chain that is part of the US-based Choice Hotels group, comes out on top) and then breaks out the results for the US, Europe, and Asia. You can click through to see complete rankings for all areas.

A Nordic Choice hotel in Sunne, Sweden. (Source: Nordic Choice)

All in all, a handy reference when you are helping a client decide on the property with the best hotel Wi-Fi for their needs.

She started Travel by Cannon while pregnant with her first child, then moved from New Jersey to Oklahoma while nurturing her fledgling business. (Yes, a home-based travel business is portable.)

Cannon loved the Caribbean and had planned her own destination wedding in Punta Cana. Once she moved to Oklahoma, she retooled her business and saw an opportunity for specialization based on her own experience in planning her own wedding and honeymoon. She marketed herself locally and rebranded her agency as “Honeymoons Designed.”

Today, she is a bona fide success story who is “paying it forward” by helping up and coming agents. Lately, in a series of articles for Travel Research Online, Cannon has been sharing the fruits of her experience with fellow home-based travel agents.

• Being in a new city, where I knew very few people, I had to ramp up marketing, build relationships, and choose something that would set me apart.

Cannon turned a stint on jury duty into a lesson for her business:

• I quickly saw that one team was far superior to the other. This wasn’t based on their knowledge of the law, or even their knowledge of the medical scenario. It was very much based on their demeanor, personalities, confidence, and the way they presented themselves.

And a conversation with the judge, post-verdict, translated into questions regarding client relations…

• How many of us take the time in our busy world to get to know our clients? To have a conversation with them like a friend? To stay in touch even when they haven’t booked in a while? Do you ask for their thoughts or feedback on your business and booking process? What can be improved to make things smoother and better for them and future clients? I do think that is a very important step for us. I am guilty of not always taking the time to ask for feedback, other than about their specific vacation. So how can we, as an industry, make the entire process a better experience for our clients, exceed their expectations, and beat the big online travel agencies in client relations each and every time?

And so did the fact that the lawyers and the client remembered the jurors’ names and thanked them:

• How many of you personally thank your clients each and every time? Thanking them when they least expect it and making them feel valued? I’ll admit that I have been a little lax in this area. What is your process of thanking clients? How well does it work for you? At what point in the process do you say, or send a, thank you? What unexpected surprises have you delivered in the past? Or have you received in the past? How can we use what I have shared, or what experiences you’ve had in the past to improve our businesses, our industry as a whole, and time after time ensure that our clients always remember us first because we made them feel special?

Cannon analyzed her marketing plan for 2015 to find a balance between busy and slow cycles:

• I had a great marketing plan with specific tasks for each week that I was to do…. I should have utilized some of my December slow time to pre-prepare several weeks’ worth of marketing in advance (emails, blog posts, social media posts), so I could do a simple copy and paste, or even schedule to post on specified dates and times.

• I also struggle with deciding what doesn’t get done during the very busy months… It was marketing, updating my website, updating processes and documents. Were those the correct ones to push aside? I’m not sure, but my gut says probably not. I should have done at least some marketing, whatever minimum I could fit in.

She attended a seminar with wedding marketing professional Alan Berg and came away with a new take on “to do” lists:

• One thing that stuck with me was the concept of creating two lists, a “Today List” and a “To-Do List.” Your Today List are things that you must get done “today.” Your To-Do List should be 3 larger items, and a bit more time consuming. You work on those a little each day/week until they are completed. The key with a To-Do list is you do not add any other items until you’ve completed those on the list. This helps to keep you focused and not continually work on the smaller, simpler tasks, but to make some real strides and accomplishments on more difficult goals as well. These can be business goals, personal goals, or whatever you see fit. I like the concept and will be trying it out here soon.

So what is her plan for the remainder of 2015 and 2016?

• Be prepared, maybe even over prepared, to make things as simple as possible when it comes time to do the task.

• Simplify as much as possible.

• Be consistent, even if that means cutting back due to time constraints.

If you’re already a home-based travel agent, take Cannon’s advice to heart! If you’ve been on the fence, let her success be a blueprint for yours through the Home-Based Travel Agent Success Course.

Yes, despite all that you’ve been hearing lately about how millennials are the new force in the travel business the baby boomer generation is still very much with us.

The baby boomer demographic is usually defined as those born between 1946 and 1964; in other words a baby boomer is between 50 and 69 today, give or take a few years.

Among the things that make the baby boomer generation attractive to travel agents is the fact that, having logged a good number of years in the work force, many of them are affluent. Moreover, a segment of the baby boomer crowd is retired or semi-retired and scratching that old travel itch.

Can a travel agent specialize in the baby boomer cohort? Sure. And I’m a big believer in specialization. But there are a lot of tastes and preferences under the broad baby boomer umbrella, so it makes sense to specialize in one more more types of travel that appeal especially to baby boomers.

Of course, another mode of specialization I advocate is marketing travel with the most payback for you, the travel agent.

“The Advantages of Specialization,”

Module 1, Chapter 2

Students of the Home-Based Travel Agent Success Course get some sound advice on eight different ways to specialize in your home-based agency.

With that in mind, here is my take on five baby boomer travel niches that are especially lucrative.

Baby boomer travel niche #1: Destination weddings

The glamor of destination weddings (source Sandals)

You might think millennials are the ones to target for this product and you’d be right. But baby boomers get married, too. Many are second (or third) marriages.

Baby boomers are also open to something a bit different from the traditional church wedding, especially if they’ve already had one.

Don’t overlook (or underestimate) the gay and lesbian market for baby boomer weddings. After all, there is a lot of pent up demand.

Baby boomer travel niche #2: Faith-based travel

Lourdes, France (source Oxford U. Catholic Chaplaincy)

Many baby boomers are seeking a closer connection with their faith. Or discovering a new one. That may be one reason why, by some estimates, faith-based travel adds $100 million to the global economy each year.

One thing that makes religious travel for the baby boom generation so attractive is that it is invariably a group experience rather than individual FITs. It also covers virtually every faith, offering destinations in the U.S. as well as overseas. Moreover, many tour operators offer faith-based tours, so you will have plenty of support.

Baby boomer travel niche #3: Culinary cruises

Learn to cook at sea. (source Holland-America)

There has been an explosion of cooking-related programs on America’s cruise lines. Whether your baby boomer clients want to hone their cooking skills or just indulge in superb cuisine with wine pairing chosen by experts, there’s a cruise line to oblige.

Once again, this niche is attractive because it is so easy to identify groups in your market that will find this type of group cruise pretty irresistible. Cooking clubs are the obvious example — you could pitch a group cruise as a fund raiser — but fraternal groups, alumni associations, and many others can be easily targeted.

Baby boomer travel niche #4: Multi-Gen Travel

Boomers + two more generations (source AARP)

Why send one couple on a trip when you can send two, or three, or four. Affluent baby boomer grandparents who are yearning to spend more time with their grandkids are very open to the idea of opening their wallets and taking their kids and their kids’ kids on a cruise, or Disney World, or . . . well, you’re the travel agent, help them out.

By the way, according to AARP, 33% of baby boomers are planning a multigenerational vacation in 2015.

Helping to organize a family reunion is another way in which multigenerational travel can pay off for the nimble travel agent.

Baby boomer travel niche #5: Medical Tourism

Medical tourism (source Medical Tourism Association

When Americans can get first-world quality surgery in third-world countries and save 60% to 90% on elective procedures or other surgery not covered by their insurance, is it any wonder more and more folks are packing their bags?

The trade paper Patients Beyond Borders believes the medical tourism market in the U.S. alone is worth between $38 and $55 billion a year. That’s billion with a “B.” Not all of that money goes to travel, of course, but still.

In other words, there’s money to be made serving this lucrative niche and since aging bodies have an annoying way of breaking down, baby boomers are a logical target market.

On the downside, this specialty requires more organization and expertise than most. There’s a fair amount of hand holding and screening involved in pre-trip planning, so most travel agents in this area team with medical professionals to provide a soup-to-nuts service.